Amelia Island, Fla—Poor sleep in a child's early years may not only interfere with normal growth and development, but also strain family life. At the fourth annual pediatric sleep medicine conference, sponsored by the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, Providence, RI, talks and workshops explored the translation of basic research to clinical practice.

The diversity of attendees at the meeting—which included pediatricians, pulmonologists, otolaryngologists, neurologists, psychiatrists, dentists, and others—“reflects burgeoning multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary activity in our field,” said conference cochair Judith Owens, MD, MPH, associate professor of pediatrics at Brown and director of pediatric sleep disorders at Hasbro Children's Hospital, also in Providence.